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User: Phroon

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Comments · 84

  1. Re:40% heavier than lead on Meet Ununseptium, Best Contender Yet For Element 117 · · Score: 5, Informative

    The "40% heavier" actually refers to atomic weight, not density. By density, Tungsten is ~70% heaver than lead, Depleted Uranium about 68%. Tungsten's atomic wight is actually ~10% lighter than Lead's. Bulk density is about arrangement of the electrons and the resulting packing of atoms in the solid.

  2. Re:Exquisite Use(overuse) Of Hyper Text on Code.org Documentary Serving Multiple Agendas? · · Score: 2

    This is Slashdot. You never click on the article.

  3. Re:Seems the LHC's win was an IT win on Texas Scientists Regret Loss of Higgs Boson Quest · · Score: 1

    You have it exactly backwards. The LHC has 8 times more energy and smashes significantly more protons. The LHC has gotten nearly as much data in two years as the Tevatron collider got in its ~15 year lifetime.

  4. Re:So why the right hand? on The Science of Handedness · · Score: 3, Informative

    Luckily, the physicist has since discovered another clever experiment which the aliens can use to differentiate between what we call matter and antimatter. There's a certain type of particle that can transform into it's antiparticle and back again. But the catch is that one of the transformations will happen more often than the other. That means that even if the alien swaps matter for antimatter they will still be able to tell which is which by looking at which transformation dominates. (More details here)

    "Now," the physicist admits "this all assumes that the aliens haven't swapped the direction of time on us as well! Buggers might just have effects preceding causes." (See CPT symmetry)

  5. Re:Geeks never throw away old tech stuff on The Recycling of the Tevatron · · Score: 1

    They just can't part with the Tevatron . . . this recycling line is just an excuse to keep it around.

    Assuming you would want to, it is non-trivial to just dispose of 4 miles of superconducting magnets.

    Anyways, the part of the Tevatron that you are most likely to find reuse is the 4 miles of tunnel. The civil construction to dig a tunnel that big, complete with tunnel penetrations and service buildings is a significant portion of the cost of any project. You would be a fool to just fill in such a valuable commodity just because you don't have a use of it today.

    And that's ignoring all the parts that are already being scrounged for use in the NoVA upgrades. So no, keeping it around is not merely a case of geek sentiment.

  6. Re:Also... on Fermilab's New Commercial Research Center · · Score: 3, Informative
  7. Re:1 bug / 100,000 mile - I'll take that on Google Lobbies Nevada To Allow Self-Driving Cars · · Score: 1

    I don't have bugs, I have race conditions!

    I don't get it. Perhaps If you used a car analogy...

  8. Re:It has now been named.... on Fermi Lab May Have Discovered New Particle or Force · · Score: 2

    It shall henceforth be known as the pleaseExtendOurFunding-ion.

    No it's far too late for something that petty, that day has already passed. The Tevatron collider run will not be extended:

    "Unfortunately, the current budgetary climate is very challenging and additional funding has not been identified. Therefore, based in part of the P5 recommendation, operation of the Tevatron will end in FY 2011, as originally scheduled." - W. F. Brinkman; Directior, Office of Science, U.S. Department of Energy

    Fiscal year 2011 ends September 30, 2011. There is not yet a decommissioning plan.

  9. Re:That's just unfair on SABAM Wants Truckers To Pay For Listening To Radio · · Score: 1

    Turlingdrome! This is a swutting family site, quenda. Keep saying words like that and you'll get us into one joojooflop of a situation with the censors!

  10. Re:The question being... on Apple App Store Hits 10B App Download Mark · · Score: 1

    Does it work on the mac app store?

    Yes. Any iTunes gift certificate is shared between all of the stores, iBooks, iTunes and Mac App store. I redeemed a gift certificate on my iPad and the balance showed up automatically on the Mac App store on my computer. Of course, they are both signed into the same Apple ID.

  11. Re:WTF is Eighty dollars millimeters? on Four IT Consultants Charged With $80M NYC Rip-Off · · Score: 1

    "$80MM"

    Is dollars millimeters a new unit?

    MM obviously stands for MegaMillion, and with the $ the number is clearly in hexadecimal, so the value represented is 120 MegaMillions. With the current value of the MegaMillion jackpot in excess of 242 Million USD, NYC was therefore ripped off for over 29 Trillion USD.

    Clearly.

  12. Definitely Not on Should Colleges Ban Classroom Laptop Use? · · Score: 1

    Definitely not, otherwise how are they supposed to get First Post?

  13. Re:antihydrogen on LHC Scientists Create and Capture Antimatter · · Score: 1

    Ahh, I understand the confusion now. I was trying to convey the fact that the anti-hydrogen wasn't around as anti-hydrogen for very long in just a few words. I should have said something to the effect of 'collided with the container' to be more exact.

    I had thought of this issue for a few seconds when typing the post, but decided that as the anti-hydrogen atom was a composite of a antiproton and a positron, you could very well destroy it without destroying the composite pieces merely by separating them, thus allowing me a bit of liberty to simplify my diction.

  14. Re:antihydrogen on LHC Scientists Create and Capture Antimatter · · Score: 4, Informative

    I think the temporary capture of antiprotons and antielectrons has been achieved before

    You are correct. For example the Fermilab Antiproton Source, which creates antiprotons and stores them, has been in operation since 1985 [1], while the Fermilab Recycler has held onto a continuous stash of antiprotons for over a month [2]. And these are by no means the very first machines to capture and store antimatter, I'd have to dig though the history a bit more to find an earlier example.

    Production of Anti-hydrogen (antiproton orbited by a positron) seems to have been achieved in 1995 at CERN, with Fermilab confirming production in 1997 [3]. But those atoms were destroyed immediately after being created, this is the first time I've heard of anyone successfully storing anti-hydrogen for any long period of time. So yes, the headline is misleading, we've been capturing antimatter for quite some time, it's the fact that you are capturing the neutrally charged anti-hydrogen (antiproton -1, positron +1, total = 0) that's the real news.

  15. Re:It's just a jet contrail on Mystery Missile Launched Near LA · · Score: 2, Informative

    Here's around the same time in IR, but for a longer duration (~900 KB gif). Quite a bit easier to see.

    Source: http://goes.gsfc.nasa.gov/goeswest-lzw/california/ir5/ 1011081645G11I05.tif 08-Nov-2010 12:02 to 1011090100G11I05.tif 08-Nov-2010 20:24

  16. Re:Misleading title on Fermilab Confirms Evidence of 4th Flavor Neutrino · · Score: 1

    The Paper on arXiv, for the most of us who don't have PRL access: Event Excess in the MiniBooNE Search for Vu -> Ve Oscillations

  17. Re:Nuclear propulsion. on Can We Travel To That Exciting New Exoplanet? · · Score: 1

    The reason we don't have a lot of production is no one has put together a system dedicated to making antimatter.

    But we do, the Fermilab Antiproton Source. By my calculations, it currently has about an order of magnitude higher production rate than the parent's prediction (which originally comes from an un-sourced section of the wikipedia article on antimatter).

  18. Re:Nuclear propulsion. on Can We Travel To That Exciting New Exoplanet? · · Score: 1

    Using the current process it would take 2 billion years to produce 1 gram of anti-hydrogen

    We are much better at making anti-protons. Fermilab's Antiproton source can regularly do 25*10^10 antiprotons an hour, with rates topping out at 28*10^10 per hour (sustained).

    So you could probably manage one gram in 'only' 250 million years with what we have built today. However, the best antiproton storage machine has only held 540*10^10 antiprotons at the same time, so there'd need to be an improvement in storage.

  19. Re:LCARS interface for iPad... on How Star Trek Artists Imagined the iPad... 23 Years Later · · Score: 1
    I googled for a bit and found three LCARS iPad lookalikes so far:
  20. Re:Congrats, you might already be a Nature co-auth on Gamers Beat Algorithms At Finding Protein Structures · · Score: 3, Funny

    Sweet, I'll put that right after "Time's Person of the Year 2006".

  21. Re:Apple replies on Windows Vulnerable To 'Token Kidnapping' Attacks · · Score: 1

    My bad, my humor sensor is broken today. Commented to remove said moderation.

  22. Re:How dare Apple advertise their own products! on Apple's HTML5 and Standards Gallery Not Standard · · Score: 1

    Shock! horror! Apple are using their own website to push Safari and claim that their own browsers are ahead of the game on standards support? The bastards!!!

    Shhh! You're interrupting the two minutes' hate!

  23. Re:Nice pix on 20 Years of Hubble · · Score: 4, Informative

    The "star filters" you mention are actually diffraction spikes caused by the rods that support the secondary mirror of the telescope. They are an intrinsic quality of the telescope. If you look at the left side of this image of the Hubble under construction you can see three (of the four) black spokes that connect the outer cylindrical support to the cylinder in the middle (this is where the secondary mirror is mounted to). It is the light diffracting off of these spokes that cause the starburst pattern that you noticed.

  24. Re:Here's what the Bad Astronomer says about it on Obama Outlines Bold Space Policy ... But No Moon · · Score: 5, Funny

    Damn it! You tricked me into reading the article!

  25. Re:Bad /. no biscuit on Slashdot Discussions Now Include Roulette Video Chat · · Score: 1

    ClickToFlash will help alleviate your Flash problems on Safari without completely disabling Flash altogether.